


for the hearts that never played in tune

by rudimentaryflair



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Don't copy to another site, Forging (Inception), I don't know how to tag this, Light Angst, M/M, Open Ending, Swearing, dom being an accidental dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 12:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20063761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudimentaryflair/pseuds/rudimentaryflair
Summary: "You'd be better off without it," Eames says."Without what?" Arthur asks."Sentiment."Faintly inspired by the songAubrey.





	for the hearts that never played in tune

**Author's Note:**

> This work was created for the Inception Big Bang Challenge.
> 
> The brilliantly talented and lovely [mizunoir](https://mizunoir.tumblr.com) made [this drawing](https://mizunoir.tumblr.com/post/186677342798/my-artwork-for-inceptionbigbang-i-had-the) for this fic! Please go check it out, it's absolutely beautiful.
> 
> Also, many thanks to [IAmANonnieMouse](https://iamanonniemouse.tumblr.com) for betaing this.

_ _

_art by mizunoir_

* * *

**i.**

Mal finds Eames through a contact of a contact, and to the chagrin of Dom and Arthur, immediately latches onto his elusive persona like she would a good mystery novel. Arthur goes with it because of his need for competency and Eames’ admittedly competent forging abilities. Dom goes with it because he’s disgustingly in love with Mal.

Eames comes with an airport gift bag and a larger than life personality that should make him extremely annoying, but instead makes him incredibly charming. 

Arthur, on the other hand, has about as much charisma as a dead rat, which is why he stays in the back of the warehouse with his spreadsheets and lets Dom and Mal give the introductions. Dreamshare may have granted him the ability to unblinkingly shoot a man in the face, but it has yet to give him the tolerance for small talk.

That doesn’t deter Eames from dropping his gift bag on Arthur’s desk and cheerfully saying, “Well, you certainly look like an Arthur.”

Arthur pauses what he’s doing and stares, because … what. He looks at Eames, then at the gift bag, then back at Eames again, unsure of what to say. He settles for, “Hello.”

“But then again,” Eames continues, as though Arthur hadn’t spoken, “if you were named something different, like Christopher, I suppose you’d look like one too.” He has an accent - British - and terrible taste in clothing; his shirt looks like it’s been cut from someone’s table spread, which Arthur finds mildly appalling. What’s more appalling is that he’s _ attractive _.

Arthur chooses to ignore this fact and focus on what Eames just said. “Do I look like a Christopher?”

“Of course not,” says Eames. “You look like an Arthur.”

"I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

For some reason, this makes Eames light up. “Exactly. So you have to ask yourself, what’s in a name?”

At a loss, Arthur says, “Letters, probably.”

Eames laughs, which makes Arthur have to focus on the space next to his ear, because looking at his face feels like staring directly into the sun. He suddenly has no idea what to do with his hands, so in a desperate swipe to get the conversation on a track he can work with, Arthur asks, “What are you doing here?”

“Ah, right.” Eames rummages through the gift bag, pulling out a tiny snowglobe and placing it in front of Arthur. “For you.”

It’s the size of a clementine, with a smattering of rectangles in the middle to depict a city. Arthur stares at it, perplexed. Usually, new hirees brought him coffee, or dossiers. Not _ souvenirs. _“What is this for?”

“You, darling.”

“Well _ obviously _. I meant, why are you giving it to me?” The last part of the sentence suddenly registers. “What did you call me?”

Eames shrugs. “I like snow, and I think I could like you, so I thought, why not put the two together?” And then, before Arthur can make sense of what the _ fuck _he just said, Eames sweeps the bag off the table and meanders over to Dom and Mal, leaving Arthur alone with the snowglobe.

*

Eames, as Arthur eventually finds out, has a knack for being weirdly conversational during the most inopportune of times. 

Case in point:

“Truth or dare?”

They’re huddled behind a lotion kiosk, of all things, firing sporadically into the swath of projections coming their way. The mark is a sensible woman with more sensible shoes and a penchant for impulse shopping at the mall. Hence the lotion kiosk.

“Is this really the best time?” Arthur asks, reloading his Glock. He fires and mentally counts how many bullets he has left, before he needs to magic another gun into existence and broadcast their position to every hostile in the vicinity. 

“None better,” Eames says cheerfully, shooting a matronly looking woman between the eyes. 

“I can think of plenty of better times.” For example, never. Something expensive breaks loudly in the distance. Arthur ducks back under the kiosk to grab his other clip.

At the same time, Eames snatches said clip up and holds it out of reach. He gives Arthur a pointed look.

“Really?” Arthur demands. “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

Arthur feels vaguely like stabbing something. Instead, he says, reluctantly, “Truth.”

Eames brightens so unexpectedly that it gives Arthur whiplash. He says, “Do you think we have better chances going for the elevators or the cafeteria?”

Arthur stares at him. “You could’ve just _ asked _me.”

“But what fun would that be?”

“I find your definition of fun to be slightly alarming.” He peeks out from behind the kiosk and scans the area, before pulling back and saying, “We make for the second floor. It’s our best bet, but we’ll have to run like hell.”

“Brilliant,” says Eames. “Now you ask me, darling.”

“I - what?” Arthur trips over his words at the term of endearment, then tries to recollect himself. “Seriously?” Eames just looks at him again, and Arthur sighs, relenting. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“Cover me.” He snatches two pistols from thin air and starts sprinting.

The effect is instantaneous. Eerily synchronized, the projections all turn their heads towards him, before lunging forward. Arthur flies down the length of the mall, taking out a cop with a well-placed kick. Eames fires his gun wildly. Three, four, five projections drop in front of him like flies. Arthur shoves past them and crashes through the side-door to the stairwell. 

Eames follows not long after, darting quickly through the mess of bodies. They barricade the door with a fire ax. 

“Truth or dare?” Eames asks, after they catch their breath. Arthur frowns at him, and Eames grins. “Game’s not over yet.”

“Does everything have to be a game for you?”

“Of course,” Eames says, like it’s the most obvious thing. “So? Truth or dare?”

A little paranoid that Eames will make him do something utterly ridiculous, Arthur repeats, “Truth.”

Eames shakes his head at him. “Boring.” It sounds fond, and Arthur stares, trying to make sense of it. “What’s next?”

“Next,” Arthur says, moving briskly to the second floor of the mall, “we blow up the stairwell.”

Conjuring explosives out of nothing is bound to draw a lot of unwanted attention to them, so one of them needs to stay outside and guard the other. Arthur dares Eames to shoot at any projections that come their way while he sets the bomb up - it’s incredibly stupid, and Arthur could’ve just _ told _Eames to go do that, but he gets an odd bubbly feeling when he asks Eames “Truth or dare?” unprompted and Eames beams at him and makes him feel like he’s holding the fucking moon in his hand.

Dear God, he’s becoming Dom.

“You think that’s enough of a diversion?” Eames asks after the explosion, when they’ve got three bullets between the two of them and way too many projections on their tail. Arthur is too busy shoving someone over the balcony to answer. 

Suddenly, all the projections disappear. Even the dead ones, bodies littering the first floor, vanish. 

“Well then,” Eames says.

“Dom must’ve kicked the mark out,” Arthur guesses, looking around at the empty mall. “We should wake up.” He raises his gun to his head, but Eames abruptly grabs his hand and tugs the gun away.

“Truth or dare?” Eames asks, his fingers solid and warm around his wrist. 

And Arthur, suddenly feeling dangerously reckless, says, “Dare.” 

He expects it to be something simple, like “Jump over the balcony”, or something absurd like “Do a handstand in the fountain over there”. 

What he doesn’t expect is Eames tugging on his arm and saying, “Have dinner with me,” so brightly and sunnily.

Arthur gapes. “I - sorry?”

“There’s this Thai place I’ve been dying to try,” Eames continues, not letting go. “Or we could do Korean. Do you like Korean?”

“I’m partial to Vietnamese,” Arthur blurts out, because there’s that bubbly feeling again, fizzy and sparkling in his stomach. Eames’ eyes remind him of sea glass and saltwater, and he wants to go swimming in them. Then, he notices that Eames is just looking at him contemplatively, like he’s trying to puzzle something out. “What?”

“You have dimples,” Eames says, and Arthur could say something smooth back, or pull him closer by the hand, or lean in - 

But then Dom comes crashing out of a Radio Shack, a pair of earbuds wrapped around his ankle, clutching a manila envelope.

Arthur yanks himself away so fast he thinks he gets skin burn. 

“Hey guys,” Dom says, trying to shake the earbuds off his foot. He looks up at them and frowns quizzically. “Did I miss something?”

*

They don’t get dinner, because the mark turns out to know someone who knows someone, and they all end up having to split and haul ass away from a team of armed hitmen. The next time Arthur sees Eames again is a month later, in Brisbane, after a very Eames-less job.

He’s getting settled in a taxi when the other door opens and Eames slides in, looking smug. He has an incredibly loud, Hawaiian shirt on, and capris. 

“Share a cab?” he offers, smiling.

“You’re already here,” Arthur points out. The car starts rolling. “What do you want?”

“Do you like orchestras?” Eames asks, instead of answering.

Arthur loves orchestras. He doesn’t say that. “What do orchestras have to do with anything?”

“I got tickets for me and a buddy of mine to the Sydney Opera House,” Eames says, “but as it turns out, he’s a bloody, back-stabbing wanker, so now I’m out two grand, and I have an extra ticket. Then I saw you across the street and thought, well there’s an idea.”

“What makes you think I’d go with you?”

“Well you have to. We’ve got a show to catch.”

Arthur thinks _ I can’t believe I’m about to do this, _and tries not to smile like an idiot when he nods at Eames’ outfit and says, “Not with that, you’re not.”

And that sets off the dynamic between them, a back-and-forth rhythm so natural it feels like breathing. Eames unravels him like he’s a ball of yarn, and it becomes distressingly easy for Arthur to just chatter at him, when they’re on a plane between jobs or holed up in a hotel.

Arthur tells him about being a scrawny Jewish kid in the Midwest, clawing his way out of his hometown and trying to find his footing in the real world. He talks about _ École d'Architecture _, about Professor Miles and his daughter Mal, who showed him how to use a PASIV for the first time, and how Arthur repaid her by teaching her how to shoot a gun. He talks about how he wants to go to Europe, not because of his love for France, but because of his love for Billy Joel.

In turn, he gets to see Eames’ imperfections, which are vast and all-encompassing, and make Arthur like him even more. Eames doesn’t know how to use chopsticks, can’t carry a tune to save his life. He is messy and irresponsible and breezy, owning more trinkets than he knows what to do with and hoarding them like a dragon. 

“They’re sentimental,” Eames tells him.

They’re on the rooftop of some apartment complex in Queens, lying on their backs and staring up at the stars. Arthur’s discarded his jacket - the gravel is going to really fuck up the back of his dress shirt, but he can’t find it in himself to care. Later, he will blame it on the champagne. 

“You can’t be sentimental about that many things,” Arthur protests. “You have five identical surfboard keychains. Are you telling me you’re sentimental about each one separately?”

“I was sentimental about the one I got,” Eames says, “and then I got worried I was going to lose it, so I bought four more, and now it’s no longer sentimental and it won’t matter if I lose it. Problem solved.”

“I envy your mind, Mr. Eames,” Arthur says, and Eames laughs. He must be a little more than tipsy, because he blurts out, “I had a watch once. I used to carry it with me everywhere. Wouldn’t even take it off to shower.”

“I can’t help but notice you don’t have it on you now,” Eames says. “What ever happened to it?”

Arthur sighs. “Kids are mean.” He was ten when his classmates stole his watch and threw it into the creek behind the neighborhoods. He’d skinned his knees and palms raw looking for it, sharp rocks biting into his skin and the frigid water mixing red. “The lady down the street gave me money to buy a new one. I didn’t. Now I’m wondering if I should have.”

Eames says, “I’m sorry.”

They lapse into a comfortable silence. The quiet is a good change of pace from the bars Dom and Mal usually take him too. Arthur relishes in it, in the brisk night air and the pleasant buzz in his head. 

“The snowglobe,” Arthur says suddenly, because he’s been wondering about it. “What’s it really for?”

“For you to be sentimental about,” Eames answers. He gets up from the ground and stretches. “Let me call you a cab.”

It’s only after Arthur makes it back to his hotel that he realizes Eames never really answered his question.

*

The thing about falling in love is that it’s just like a dream. It has no clear beginning. It just _ is. _

When it happens, it isn’t dramatic or profound. Arthur doesn’t have any grand realization or existential epiphany. The light doesn’t even glance off the windows a certain way.

It’s just Eames, sprawled on his lawn chair in a warehouse, talking amiably about something he saw on a job two months ago, and Arthur suddenly being able to put a name to the warmth in his chest.

“What?” Eames asks, when he notices Arthur staring. “Do I have something on my face?”

Arthur hides his smile behind his moleskin. “No, you’re fine.”

**** **ii.**

When the silo explodes, the heat of it hits Arthur like a small quake.

“Fuck,” he grinds out when he realizes what’s happened. He can’t see shit through the smoke, but he guns the pickup truck and drives through it anyway. It wasn’t part of the plan for everyone to get separated from each other, but then again, nothing ever goes according to plan when you mess with the fucking mafia. If Eames isn’t dead already, Arthur is going to kill him.

He spots him stumbling towards the cornfields, shooting wildly into the open door of the barn. Arthur swings by and yells, “Get in!” and Eames doesn’t hesitate to jump into the cargo bed. They peel away from the farm and leave it to burn.

Arthur gives it half an hour before he stops the car.

“Not that I’m complaining, dear,” Eames says, when he gets into the passenger seat, “but what the hell did you come back for?”

Arthur sees a sign leading towards the highway and makes a left. “What do you mean? It’s what we do.”

“It really isn’t.”

Arthur frowns. “Was I supposed to leave you there?”

At that, Eames seems to startle, and when he speaks again, the perplexed, almost snappish tone to his voice is gone. “No, not at all.”

“Okay,” Arthur says and keeps driving. 

*

As a point man, It’s Arthur’s job to pay attention to the finer, smaller details, and he takes it very seriously; it’s one of the reasons why he’s one of the best in the business. This is why he starts noticing little things about Eames that give him pause. 

Little things, like how Arthur’s never had an argument with him. How Mal calls him endearing and shy, but Dom says he’s straightforward and a pain in the ass. How those descriptions are contradictory. Once, in line at a Starbucks, Arthur suddenly and painfully realizes that he doesn’t know how Eames takes his coffee. 

“Let’s eat out,” Dom offers, after a particularly difficult job in Vancouver. “I’ll buy.”

Tate, their chemist, says, “I’m a fan of Korean.” 

Eames makes a face. “Asian food doesn’t agree with me.”

“Your loss then.” Mal flags down a taxi. “There’s a wonderful French place nearby,” she says to Arthur. “You’ll love it.”

But Arthur isn’t listening. He’s looking at Eames uncertainly, wondering, because there was something wrong with that sentence, but he can’t quite put his finger on what.

*

“You’re cheating,” Dom accuses for the third time. “There’s no other explanation.”

“Nobody likes a sore loser,” Eames replies cheerfully, fiddling with his cards. 

Mal is out meeting with their employer, so with nothing else to do, the three of them are playing poker on the floor of the hotel room, using pens and erasers as chips. Unsurprisingly, Eames is a remarkable player, with a poker face most statues would envy. Dom, on the other hand, is wretched. For one thing, he doesn’t know how to hide his cards properly; Arthur can see that he has a jack in his peripherals. 

“Arthur, he _ has _to be cheating.”

“Leave me out of this.” Arthur moves around some pens and says, “Call.”

“Cobb,” Eames says sweetly, “you’re just very bad at seeing what’s right in front of you. Call.”

“Call.” Dom glares at him. “I know when I’m being played.”

“Yes, and here we are. Playing.”

“Eames, just roll up your sleeves,” Arthur says, exasperated. 

Eames rolls his eyes and sighs, then does what he’s told, waving his arms dramatically when he’s done. “See? Nothing. Just like the last two times.”

Dom mutters something that sounds suspiciously like _ fucking bastard _and hunches over his cards. This does nothing to hide them, and Arthur smirks from behind his hand. 

“All in,” Eames announces, shoving all his chips forward.

Dom stares at him for longer than what should be comfortable. “You’re bluffing.”

Eames blinks at him, challenging.

“Jesus,” Arthur says. “Hurry the fuck up.” _ Honestly. _

Dom pushes his chips into the middle as well. “All in.”

Arthur does the same. “Brilliant. Was that so hard? Christ.”

They flip their cards over. Arthur has a pair of queens. Dom has a jack and a two.

Eames has an ace and a king, which gives him a full house. 

“Godammit,” Dom mutters. “I’m getting a drink,” and then he moves away to get at the minibar. 

“Play to win,” Eames says smugly. He stretches in his seat, and Arthur notices the corner of a card peeking out from under his shorts.

“You _ ass,” _he says. 

Eames winks at him. “I have my ways.”

*

Arthur draws the short straw, so he ends up being the one to brief the alternate forger on the job.

The mark is a man named Cedric Friedman, who is one of those people that most either despise or dream of being. He’s exceptionally wealthy, with at least four vacation houses scattered across the globe, and his own cruise ship. Rumors about him run far and wide, so his wife, Melissa, had hired them to find out if the ones surrounding an alleged affair were true.

Rich people, as it turns out, really enjoy going to theaters, so the plan is to stage a show for Cedric and his wife, then have his mistress arrive and confront them. Neither the wife nor Cedric’s alleged mistress could be projections, which meant they’d need another forger beside Eames.

“Eames?” Harrison asks, fiddling with a pen.

Arthur pauses in the middle of his explanation. “You know him?”

“Yeah, he’s a real shady guy.” 

Arthur waits for more, but that seems to be all Harrison has to say. He continues pacing around. “Anyways, you’re going to be forging his wife. Before the show starts, you’ll need to work on him and make him feel guilty. That way, he’ll be more likely to project his mistress on Eames, if there is one. If there isn’t,” he shrugs, “Eames will just be another member of the audience to him.”

“Got it,” Harrison says. “What are we having play in the theater?”

“Whatever Mr. Friedman feels like projecting.”

“Eames is probably praying it won’t be an orchestra,” Harrison comments offhandedly, spinning idly in his chair. 

Arthur stops in his tracks. “What do you mean?”

“He hates orchestras,” Harrison explains, like it’s common knowledge. “He says they’re boring.”

“Boring?”

“Yeah, and I was like ‘Dude! Have you no taste?’ If you ask me, he’s a bit more on the weird side.” Harrison leans forward conspiratorially, completely oblivious to Arthur’s internal turmoil. “Did you know, the first time I met him, he gave me one of those sun-powered bobbleheads you get from convenience stores? It was the strangest thing.”

Faintly, Arthur asks, “Why did he do that?”

“Beats me,” Harrison says. “He said he liked deserts. Why?”

*

Eames is out on the street looking for a taxi when Arthur corners him, soaking wet from the rain.

“Oh, hello darling,” he says, surprised. He’s bone dry under his umbrella. “You’re going to catch your death out here.”

“Don’t call me that,” Arthur snarls. It cuts through the jovial atmosphere and Eames’ eyes widen. Arthur recollects himself and tries to force something out of his mouth, something that summarizes the cold, burning feeling lancing through his gut. Something furious, betrayed, and frenzied. 

What he says is, “You hate orchestras.” It sounds like his breath getting wrenched out of him.

Eames looks like he doesn’t know what is going on. Which is just fan-fucking-tastic, because neither does Arthur. “But you don’t.”

“So why, then?”

Eames hesitates. “It seemed like the best way to hammer out a good work relationship.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, because it makes Arthur see red.

_ “Fuck you!” _ he explodes. “You _ came _ to me, you asked me to dinner - it’s been over a goddamn year, and the only thing I know about you is that you like the snow, and that’s from the first fucking day we met. I don’t know anything about you, you _ lied _\- ” 

“I’m a conman,” Eames interrupts, wide-eyed and confused. “It’s what I do.”

“Not to me!” he yells, and for some reason, he’s thinking about that first day and the snowglobe and how the problem isn’t that Eames has many names, but that he has many faces. Lower, brittler, he repeats, “Not to me.”

And the thing is, Eames spends so much time hunting for the bits and pieces Arthur has concealed that he’s blind to what Arthur never bothered to hide. But now, here, dripping wet in the rain and hanging by a thread, Arthur is a more open book than he’s ever been, and finally, Eames sees.

“Oh Arthur,” he says.

**iii.**

If there’s anything Arthur knows, it’s how to be precise: precise in his spreadsheets, briefings, entrances and exits. It’s his impeccable timing that makes him a formidable opponent and gives him an edge over other point men in dreamshare.

Unfortunately, on the rare occasions when his timing is off, it’s _ really fucking off. _

Arthur crouches over Eames’ unconscious body, checking the crudely stitched wound on his side. He would be better off on a mattress, but the bedroom is on the side of the cabin that’s farthest away from the fireplace, and it’s ten degrees below zero outside. 

There are red footprints on the hardwood floors. The front of Arthur’s dress pants are soaked with blood, and his sleeve is ripped from breaking into the cabin. Fashion tragedy aside, he’s fine.

His heart, pounding loud and uncontrollable in his ears, does not get the message. His face is wet. Shock, Arthur decides. It’s shock. He checks to see if Eames is still breathing, just in case. It’s dreadful - a slow, dry wheeze being tugged from his lungs every few seconds. 

Arthur rummages around the cupboards and fridge for anything he can use, then double-checks the locks on the doors. 

Their Russian architect could have helped them out of the country, Arthur thinks bitterly, if she hadn’t been in league with their double-crossing extractor.

He’s checking for a pulse again when Eames stirs and opens his eyes.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” Arthur says. “No, don’t move - here.” He presses an ice cube to Eames’ mouth, then goes back to trying to wipe the blood off him. They’re going to have to clean the floor especially well before they leave if they want their brief stay to remain unknown. And it’s going to have to be brief, because if their turncoat extractor doesn’t get to them first, the secret service will. 

Eames halts his train of thought by saying, “Darling,” and then erupting into a fit of coughs.

“Shut up,” Arthur says automatically, and Eames opens his mouth again and Arthur says, “No, stop making it worse.” He gives him another ice cube. “See if you can keep that down, and then you can have some more.”

Several minutes go by in silence. Arthur thinks he’s gone back to sleep, which is good, since sleep is the only other medicine besides the Percocet in the cabinet, but then Eames places a fever-hot hand on his wrist.

“You’d be better off without it,” he says, weakly.

“Without what?” Arthur asks, distracted by his relief that Eames can articulate a full sentence and the fact that Eames refuses to go the fuck to sleep.

“Sentiment.”

Arthur snatches his hand back.

Something must show on his face, because Eames’ expression softens and he pats his hand once, then closes his eyes again to rest. 

And Arthur - Arthur doesn’t say anything, because he’s thinking about a day fourteen years ago, when Ms. Burnam from two doors down slipped a twenty in his hand and told him to go buy himself a new watch, and he said no, for the same, nameless reasons for why he’s holding Eames’ hand in a cabin in the middle of Russia.

*

After his meltdown in the rain, Arthur promises himself that he will never let his emotions get the better of him again. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and whatever happened on that street is a mistake in Arthur’s book. He’s good at compartmentalizing, so that’s what he does: rips out the pages, stuffs them in a box, and locks them away.

“Oh Arthur,” Mal says sadly one day, when Arthur is trying to distract himself by working too hard. “You can’t hide your love. It just ends up bleeding out of you anyway.”

Not on my fucking watch, he thinks, and works harder. 

Dom and Mal have their second child and temporarily retire from dreamshare. During this time, Arthur claws himself to the top, throws his name out to the masses, revels in being the best. Dom tells him he’s overcompensating, and Arthur ignores him. 

The next time Arthur sees Eames again, Eames says “Darling”, all sugary and sweet, and tries to go in for a kiss. Arthur shoves away and says “_ Fuck _you” with so much venom that Eames looks like he’s been slapped. Arthur hates it - hates the facade, hates the act, hates the way Eames pretends. 

Ever the master at reading people, Eames figures that out very quickly. He becomes a mess of gaps and empty spaces whenever they work with each other, like a puzzle with too many missing pieces. He lets Arthur know exactly how much he doesn’t know, and for that, Arthur is grateful, even though he doesn’t show it. He’s sure Eames knows, anyway.

Eames calls for a job and Arthur tells him he’s busy. He doesn’t believe in being a masochist when he can help it. 

The job goes south, as a result of his sub-par replacement failing to vet the mark correctly. It’s a mistake Arthur wouldn’t have made. Eames walks away with nothing but scratches.

Still, he makes himself available the next time Eames calls.

*

Arthur swings under the wide arc of a waiter attempting to decapitate him with a platter and shoots another one through the head, feet pounding into the floor. Immediately, the projections in the dining hall all rise, lunging over the overturned tables to swarm him like moths to a lamp.

“What’s taking so long?” he barks into his earpiece. Hashim doesn’t answer, either too occupied or too dead. For the sake of professionalism, Arthur has to assume the former. 

He trades his pistol for an uzi and guns down the front of the crowd. The ground heaves again, sending him stumbling. Whatever the extractor is doing must be to intentionally freak out the mark. Or maybe Hashim is just a reckless idiot who doesn't know any better. Arthur wouldn't put it past him.

He pivots and runs for the more open part of the dining area, firing off more rounds. 

“Oh dear,” a voice says from right beside him. “Now that is a right mess.” It’s a woman, dark-haired and slim, wearing a tight-fitting dress. There is a shiny, ruby kiss to her lips.

Before Arthur can react, she reaches out and knits him close, pulling a gun from the air and shooting at the chandelier above them.

But Arthur isn’t looking up. He’s looking at the way the polished floor doesn't quite reflect her curves, nor her heels, nor the point of her chin - 

The chandelier smashes into them, glass shattering under their skin.

They wake up in separate lawn chairs. Arthur doesn’t look at Eames when he goes to collect the PASIV.

*

The thing about falling in love is that it’s just like a dream. The thing about dreams, however, is that they don’t exist.

Eames’ entire career relies on people projecting onto him, lining empty shelves with their own narratives and stories. It works like a charm, and Arthur fell for it, hook, line, and sinker, filling in the blank canvas with his own paintbrush strokes. Realizing this now makes something in him burn, heavy and terrible.

It takes him too long to make peace with it, longer still to take the first few steps towards moving on. Progress is an uphill slog that wraps around his throat and cuts off his breath. Mal finds him on top of her house one night, drunk on champagne and cradling a tiny snowglobe in his hand. He throws it off the roof and it gets lost in the bushes. They never find it.

The thing is simply, painfully this: Arthur doesn't know Eames. He never did.

Across the warehouse, Eames laughs, loud and bright, at something their chemist just said. 

Arthur closes his eyes and breathes deeply.

Okay. Okay.

Okay.

He keeps going.

Then, Mal dies. 

**iv.**

Dom runs and Arthur follows. 

They steal passcodes and blueprints and everything in between. They crash in luxury hotels and stolen vans. They go to Geneva, Cape Town, and Saigon. They pull extraction after extraction, and not once do they slow down, stop to take a breather, stop to let the world turn and catch up to them. Dom deals with his grief by throwing all caution into the wind and letting his brilliance bleed into insanity, and Arthur, still reeling from Mal’s death, lets this happen.

The first time he sees her again, Arthur drops his gun in shock. It’s a fatal mistake - not because of the mark’s projections, but because Mal takes the opening to shove a knife in his throat. He wakes up gasping, the picture of her smiling serenely at him burned into his eyelids. He wants to scratch it out of his brain, scoop it out with a dull spoon. 

“I can get it under control,” Dom promises. “I will.” He doesn’t.

Arthur throws up when he finally manages to kick her onto the third rail of a subway track. Even awake, he can still smell the electricity, the singed flesh.

“I’m sorry,” Dom keeps saying, over and over again. “I’m sorry, but I _ can’t, _Arthur, I love her - ” 

_ “You think I don’t either?” _ Arthur screams at him, and then fucks off to Europe, where he spends a week avoiding Dom’s calls and drinking hard liquor. Dom is a shitty extractor and an even shittier friend, and Arthur can’t stand him anymore. 

On the third day of his strike, he goes to an address in Edinburgh, one he knows by heart, not out of necessity, but out of over-sentimentalism.

The door opens to reveal Eames, dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a truly horrifying, neon yellow t-shirt. It’s the second-best thing Arthur’s seen in four months.

“You look like shit,” Eames says, in the blunt, standoffish way Arthur’s become accustomed to. He doesn’t know if it’s worse or better than the dazzling, spontaneous Eames he met all those years ago.

What he does know is that he is exhausted.

Arthur grabs Eames by the collar and kisses him. 

Eames stiffens, then melts into him, and Arthur feels those empty puzzle spaces being filled in with falser, shinier pieces, and he is too tired to care. 

The bed is empty when he wakes up the next morning. There’s a note on the nightstand, telling him where the coffee is.

Arthur makes himself breakfast. Then, he goes back to running.

*

“Never again, Cobb,” Eames shouts from the backseat of the Mustang. “I am never working with you again, do you _ fucking _hear me?”

“Jesus, calm down,” Dom says, like Eames is a hysterical child throwing a tantrum.

“I will not calm down,” Eames yells. “You’re insane! When were you going to mention you had your _ dead fucking wife _ waltzing around inside your head?”

“I have it under control.”

“You expect me to believe that?” Eames snarls. “You couldn’t even tell your dick from your gun back there.”

“Eames - ”

“No. _ No. _ She drowned me _ , _ Cobb. Fucking _ drowned. _And she shot out Arthur’s fucking knees!”

“She does that,” Dom says blandly, before turning to stare resolutely out his window. 

Eames stops shouting and turns to Arthur, who has his eyes set determinedly on the road. He hasn’t said anything, not because he has nothing to add, but because Dom has already heard everything he has to say from nearly every other extraction they’ve ever done. Arthur’s oddly reminded of Mal, watching him pore over dozens of spreadsheets, saying, “You can’t hide your love. It just ends up bleeding out of you anyway.” He supposes that in a way, Dom is bleeding. 

“You need to leave this lunatic,” Eames says, draping himself over the back of Arthur’s seat. “He’s just going to get you killed and it’s not worth it. If there’s one thing dreamshare’s taught me, it’s that you shouldn’t fucking get attached - ”

“Yeah well, we all have our faults,” Arthur cuts in harshly. They have other problems to deal with, specifically, a very homicidal CEO and his team of henchmen, and getting away from them as fast as possible is at the top of his list of priorities. Not whatever this is.

Eames seems to misinterpret his statement as something else. “I didn’t mean - ”

“Eames,” Arthur snaps, “shut the fuck up.” His hands are clenched white around the steering wheel.

The rest of the drive is silent.

*

Arthur isn’t thinking when he knocks Eames away from the bullet.

The impact throws him backwards and he falls, head smashing against the ground. Fire starbursts in his gut. It twists through his insides, and the breath rushes out of him. It hurts, it really fucking hurts, but it’s nothing he hasn’t felt before.

_ “Arthur!” _ Eames stoops down by his side, getting red all over his knees. “Shit.” A few feet away is the projection’s prone form, a neat hole in its forehead.

“What the hell?” Dom comes running over to them. “What were you thinking? You’re the dreamer!”

“Momentary lapse of judgment,” Arthur gasps, spitting up a mouthful of blood. It had been easy, too easy, to push Eames a few inches to the side and step in front of the gun.

The room wavers, and he has to fight against his headache to stabilize the dream again.

“I’m kicking him out,” Eames announces. He moves to shoot, but Dom pushes his gun away.

“No. We need him alive.”

“He’s in agony,” Eames snaps.

Arthur scrabbles at the floor and manages to push himself into a sitting position. His vision whites out for a second. “I’m fine.”

“You have a hole in your stomach,” Eames says. 

“I can do it.” He props himself up against the wall. “Go, Dom, I’ll be _ fine _.”

“Good.” Dom nods at Eames. “Make sure he doesn’t die.”

“Watch the door,” Arthur orders, when Dom leaves. Eames does something horrible with his hands that makes Arthur swear.

“We have to keep pressure on it,” Eames says. “I can dream up some bandages - ”

“No, that would bring every projection in the building here - ” Another lightning bolt of pain lances through his head, and he has to clench his eyes shut to make it stop.

When he opens them, Eames is staring at his bullet wound, an unreadable expression on his face. “Why would you do that? I could have just come back.”

_ Maybe I don’t want to see you get shot, _Arthur thinks bitterly. Instead, he says, “You know why.”

A beat of silence. Then, quietly, Eames says, “I do.”

And it’s this weary, back-and-forth sidestepping that Arthur is tired of. He yearns for closure, a coda that will let them get on with their lives and stop doing the song and dance routine. He thinks that if a wake-up call is a happily ever after, then his story ends as happy as it can, in this line of work.

It takes all of five minutes of Arthur’s gaspy, dry breathing, for Eames to say, “I can’t do this - I’m waking you up.”

“No,” Arthur says. “He needs more time - ”

“Cobb can go fuck himself - ”

“I will kill you if you shoot me,” Arthur says through clenched teeth. “Do you understand? I will kill you if you wake me up before Dom finishes the extraction.”

There’s a moment when Arthur thinks that Eames will ignore him and shoot him anyway, consequences be damned, because that was the way of him, to not care and do whatever he wanted, but Eames just deflates and crumples in on himself. He sits down next to Arthur.

“Okay,” Arthur sighs. “Okay.” His fingers are tacky and red over his stomach. At this rate, he’ll only last twenty minutes, at most. He prays for Dom to move faster, and for Mal to not show.

“I had an unusual upbringing,” Eames says without warning, disrupting his thoughts. “My family was a bunch of wankers. British royalty, nasty business.”

“What - ” Arthur starts, but Eames presses a bloody finger to his mouth and bowls right over him. “I hated it, being put together and having to stroll around all prim and perfect. By the way, darling, I have no idea how you can stand being in those suits of yours all the time - I’ve been there, and it is _ not _pleasant.” 

“Is that why you always dress like a raccoon that’s gone through a Walmart bargain bin?” Arthur interrupts.

Eames says, “Hush, let me talk,” but he’s smiling. “Anyways, everyone either knew me as the mad lad of the family or that posh bloke from the boroughs. It was like everywhere I went, there was someone who knew all these things about me that I hadn’t told them.” He grins whimsically. “Father always took us to the states during the winter. Colorado, if I remember correctly. They have these great big, snowy mountains, with ski ranges.”

Someone moves past the room and they both tense. Eames points his gun at the door.

Lower, he continues. “I loved it there. Nobody knew who I was, and nobody ever cared. They just wanted me to get my ass on the lift without falling off and to ski without crashing into anything. And it was always a dry sort of cold there. Didn’t quite reach my bones the way the London rain did.”

It’s terribly told and far too short, but Arthur knows an olive branch when he sees one. He hangs onto every single word, few as there may be, and feels something inside him give, like a gear slipping into place. It occurs to him that this might be the first time in all the years they’ve known each other that Eames isn’t forging. 

The fact shouldn’t be as comforting as it is. 

“So that’s why I’m fond of snow,” Eames finishes, a little awkwardly. The tips of his ears are pink. 

“Anything else I need to know?” Arthur rasps.

“I really do like playing truth or dare,” Eames admits, like it’s some sort of hellish crime, and Arthur laughs, even though it makes his breath go thready and his entire body hurt.

Eames is still rambling about Colorado when Arthur’s heart gives out.

He thinks they’ll be okay.

**v.**

Arthur stays at the carousel long enough to see Professor Miles sweep Dom away to customs and to his children. The edge to his shoulders is gone, replaced with the sag of someone who has finally put down the weight of the world. It leaves a bittersweet taste in Arthur’s mouth.

Content is the wrong word for how Arthur feels, but there isn’t a more suitable term to describe the sharp calm in his throat. 

This is it, he thinks. This is how it ends.

The others have all gone their separate ways; Saito’s jumped onto another flight, and Ariadne’s left with a family friend, and Yusuf’s melted away into the crowd. Arthur doubts he’ll see any of them ever again.

And then there’s Eames, hovering apprehensively in his peripheral with a luggage cart.

“I have something for you,” Eames says. He digs in his pocket, pulling out a flat poker chip.

Hesitantly, Arthur takes it from him. It’s worn from age, the colors dulled by time and use. He turns it over his thumb and reads the word carved into it; it’s the name of a popular poker club in Mombasa. The spelling is off.

“What is this for?” he asks. 

“You, darling.”

“Well _ obvious - ” _Arthur cuts himself off. They stare at each other. 

“Look,” Eames says tentatively. “I think we started off on the wrong foot, and I would like very much to make that up to you.”

“You don’t have to,” Arthur says. He’s made his peace with it already. 

“We never had dinner,” Eames blurts out suddenly, uncharacteristically rash. At the look of surprise on Arthur’s face, he hastily says, “Sorry, I didn’t - ”

“No,” Arthur says softly. “It’s okay.” He understands what Eames is offering.

The thing is this: Arthur doesn't know Eames. But he does know that Eames is terrible at singing along with the radio and that he eats sushi with a fork. That he doesn’t care for orchestras or bands, or any type of instrumental music. That he lies easier than he breaths.

Eames is a prickly, derisive bastard, who kicks at Arthur’s chairs and throws around offhand comments and is honest when he tries to be, and Arthur thinks he could love him anyway.

He tucks the poker chip in his pocket.

“Let’s get out of here,” Arthur says.

They do.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm rudimentaryflair on Tumblr! :D


End file.
